A multi-millionaire estate agent whose 'disastrous' divorce left him unable to afford to buy a home of his own has won a ruling that parts of a family court judgement made last year were 'too favourable' to his ex wife.

Levels of demand for child protection and care services continue to rise nationally, new research shows, and a majority of directors of children's services fear that pressures will continue to rise in future years.

A gay man from Essex who donated his sperm to enable a lesbian couple to have two children, but who was never named on their birth certificate and had no role in their upbringing, is being forced by the Child Support Agency to pay for their support – 13 years after the first child was born.

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has delivered a shock verdict in a hotly anticipated big-money divorce case, ruling that companies belonging to oil tycoon Michael Prest should not be forced to hand over assets totalling £17.5m to his former wife.

On the final day of the government’s consultation into child maintenance, the UK’s largest children’s charity is warning that the poorest parents will be forced to make an impossible choice under the new child maintenance system.

These Regulations modify the provisions in Schedule 1 to the Child Support Act 1991 relating to the calculation of the basic rate of maintenance and the minimum amount ofliability where the non-resident parent is party to another maintenance arrangement.

Investment in early intervention is reducing demand for child protection services by up to 30 per cent in some local authorities, while other areas struggle to cope with huge increases in demand for support, research by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services has found.

The former wife of a billionaire is claiming he has breached their divorce settlement by failing to maintain her two luxury homes, cutting down on the number of her servants and refusing to pay her head chef's salary.

New partners of divorced parents face losing part of their salary under changes to the child benefit system if they earn over £50,000, even if the children are not theirs, accountants at Deloitte have warned.

Labour MP Chris Bryant’s decision to introduce a ten minute rule bill on equal marriage in the House of Commons has been described as the “first shot” in the parliamentary battle for marriage equality.

In Y v Y [2012] EWHC 2063 (Fam) Mrs Justice Baron has awarded a wife a lump sum of £8,738,000 in a case which, in the light of the wife's needs, required her to 'invade' the husband's inherited assets.

Family members could be missing out on the chance to become legal guardians for children who can no longer live with their birth parents, due to the new six-month time limit for completing care proceedings in the courts, charities have warned.

Young people leaving care should be given priority access to support from agencies such as mental health and housing until they reach their early 30s, the chief executive of the charity Tact has claimed.

The days are gone when fathers held exclusive power over their children’s education, a judge ruled yesterday in rejecting the objections of an ultra-orthodox Jewish father to his ex-wife’s choice of schools for their children.